An open collection of baseball's little-known records and curiosities.

"He would have been among the league leaders in batting average for a majority of the season had he had enough plate appearances." -- 2008 St. Louis Cardinals Media Guide about non-roster invitee Mark Johnson

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

AA Errors by Position

My post on AAA errors by position is here. Today I'm focusing on AA players. Conveniently, fewer players spent time with more than one AA team last season. I assume this has to do with fewer AA players being on the fringes of 40-man rosters and thus prone to being placed on waivers and claimed by other teams.

The fielding percentage table is pretty similar to the errors table so I axed it. The only pitchers that cracked the top ten with fewer than 4 errors in more than 20 total chances were David Huff (.857) of Akron, Frank Herrmann (.870) of Akron, Fernando Rodriguez (.870) of Arkansas, and Blake Johnson (.885) of Northwest Arkansas. Johnson was tenth on the list, so use the pitchers from the first list with lower fielding percentages to round out the leaderboard. Looking at the league numbers, it's strange how the Texas League is so much worse than the others. I don't know why that would be. Only three of my bottom ten qualifying pitchers in fielding percentage played in the Texas League, compared to two in the Southern League and five in the Eastern League, but that's not really strange considering the distribution of teams between the leagues.

Much like Jason Jaramillo in AAA, Anthony Recker appears on top of the errors list thanks to his durability. He caught just over 100 more innings than the AA runner-up (1014.3 to 914.0). He started 112 of his team's 140 games. Having so many more chances gave him a leg up on the competition to commit the most errors. Brandon Yarbrough tied him in errors despite catching a little over half as many innings. Once again the Texas League lags behind the other two leagues in fielding percentage, but the difference isn't noteworthy this time.

Once again you can pretty much construct the fielding percentage leaderboard from the errors list. Only two players appear in the top ten (minimum 500 chances) without having committed at least nine errors. They are Kila Kaaihue (.988) of Northwest Arkansas and Johan Limonta (.985) of West Tenn. Anyone from the first list with a fielding percentage of .989 or lower would show up on the leaderboard. After trailing the other two leagues on the mound and behind the plate, the Texas League finally leads the way at first base.

AA Second Basemen

AA 2B Sorted By Most Errors

Name

Team

Org.

TC

E

FPct.

Mike Bell

Huntsville

MIL

559

23

.959

Christopher Coghlan

Carolina

FLA

555

18

.968

William Rhymes

Erie

DET

562

16

.972

Drew Sutton

Corpus Christi

HOU

500

16

.968

Eric Young

Tulsa

COL

548

14

.974

Nate Sutton

Arkansas

LAA

503

13

.974

Victor Mercedes

Birmingham

CHW

439

13

.970

Emmanuel Garcia

Binghamton

NYM

429

12

.972

Olmo Rosario

Connecticut

SFG

301

12

.960

3 tied with

11

AAA 2B Sorted By Lowest FPct. (minimum 250 total chances)

Name

Team

Org.

TC

E

FPct.

Mike Bell

Huntsville

MIL

559

23

.959

Olmo Rosario

Connecticut

SFG

301

12

.960

Jeffrey Dominguez

West Tenn

SEA

336

11

.967

Christopher Coghlan

Carolina

FLA

555

18

.968

William Bergolla

Harrisburg

WSN

309

10

.968

Drew Sutton

Corpus Christi

HOU

500

16

.968

Victor Mercedes

Birmingham

CHW

439

13

.970

William Rhymes

Erie

DET

562

16

.972

Shelby Ford

Altoona

PIT

391

11

.972

Emmanuel Garcia

Binghamton

NYM

429

12

.972

EAS 2B

8540

211

.975

SOU 2B

6837

164

.976

TEX 2B

5748

144

.975

AA 2B

21125

519

.975

Mike Bell appears on top of both lists, joining Brodie Downs as the two players to do that in the positions covered so far. Bell does have the largest gap between his error total and that of the runner-up through the first four positions. If anyone's curious, the two Suttons that appear in the errors list are not related to each other.

Gamel has a reputation as a good-hit, no-field type prospect. While this does little to suggest that reputation is unwarrented, at least he can take solace in the fact he's not the only AA third baseman who struggled last year. Blanco is a former Rule 5 pick of the Nationals who had his best season as a pro last year, at least with the bat. Despite the abysmal 2008 fielding percentage (.050 below runner-up Hodges), his career fielding percentage at third actually went up. Speaking of Blanco and Hodges, to construct the fielding percentage leaderboard, look at the first list and take out Nowak. Then put in David Maroul (.913) of Connecticut, Jeff Nettles (.924) of Bowie, and Christopher Malec (.926) of Trenton and sort. Voila.

AA Shortstops

AA SS Sorted By Most Errors

Name

Team

Org.

TC

E

FPct.

Elvis Andrus

Frisco

TEX

574

32

.944

Jose Coronado

Binghamton

NYM

626

30

.952

Robert Valido

Birmingham

CHW

538

27

.950

Javier Guzman

Mississippi

ATL

411

24

.942

Christopher Nelson

Tulsa

COL

345

24

.930

Ian Desmond

Harrisburg

WSN

450

22

.951

Ramiro Pena

Trenton

NYY

463

21

.955

Chris Valaika

Chattanooga

CIN

439

21

.952

Ivan DeJesus

Jacksonville

LAD

407

21

.948

Mark Kiger

West Tenn

SEA

404

21

.948

League

TC

E

FPct.

Eastern League SS

7777

339

.956

Southern League SS

6323

275

.957

Texas League SS

5555

219

.961

AA SS

19655

833

.958

This is another convenient errors table when it comes to determining the lowest fielding percentages. Replace Ramiro Pena with Jason Donald (.949) of Reading and sort and you're done. If anyone thinks Mark Kiger's name is familiar, check out his Baseball-Reference.com page. He was the first player in over a century to make his MLB debut in the playoffs when he took the field during the 2006 ALDS. A rash of injuries left the A's shorthanded in the middle infield, so Kiger was called upon to flesh out the roster. Is it weird that I'm a little disappointed Southern League shortstops couldn't get 343 more chances to bring them up to 6666?

Ambiorix Concepcion struggled in the field this year, but he's not quite at the level of Luis Terrero. Golson and Scram were two of only five AA outfielders to reach 300 total chances this past season, giving them some excuse for showing up on the first list.

So that's the errors situation at each position in AA. Obviously errors and fielding percentage aren't the best or even a particularly good way to measure defense. But when those are the two numbers that get bandied about the most when it comes to prospects and other minor leaguers, it helps to have some context, right?